Early life

Career

In 1949, when "I think I just turned 17 or I was still 16 at the time, I don't remember,"[4] Goldberg began work in the comics field as a staff colorist for Marvel's 1940s predecessor, Timely Comics, working under Jon D'Agostino.[5] Two years later, Goldberg became the coloring-department manager.[6] In that capacity, he said, he "colored not just interiors, but also every cover the rest of the decade" for Timely's successor, Atlas Comics.[6] During this time, he took evening classes at the School of Visual Arts, where Jerry Robinson, whose war-comics stories Goldberg was coloring, was one of the instructor.[4]

In addition to coloring, Goldberg drew stories for Atlas' horror comics (including as early as "The Cave of Death" in Marvel Tales #109, Oct. 1952) and other titles.[7] As he recalled in the mid-2000s of the Atlas staff:

I was in the Bullpen with a lot of well-known artists who worked up there at that time. We had our Bullpen up there until about 1958 or '59. [sic; the Bullpen staff was let go in 1957] The guys ... who actually worked nine-to-five and put in a regular day, and not the freelance guys who'd come in a drop off their work ... were almost a hall of fame group of people. There was John Severin. Bill Everett. Carl Burgos. There was the all-time great Joe Maneely.... We all worked together, all the colorists and correction guys, the letterers and artists. ... We had a great time.[5]

Goldberg recalled in the mid-2000s that "Stan [Lee, Marvel's editor-in-chief] was writing Fantastic Four, The Amazing Spider-Man and all those books. I was doing the initial coloring on all those books; I was creating the color schemes on all those characters."[5]

As a penciler and inker, Goldberg found his niche drawing in the house style established by Dan DeCarlo for the various Marvel humor titles starring teens and career girls. After starting with Kathy the Teenage Tornado, Goldberg moved on to the long-running, slapstickyMillie the Model.[5] Goldberg would also draw drew her in a more serious style during Millie's 1963-67 iteration as a romantic-adventure star, and likewise exhibited a less-cartoony style on the teen romantic comedy series Patsy Walker. He would eventually co-plot these humor stories with writer-editor Lee.[6]

Some Marvel humor stories with art credited to Sol Brodsky may have been Goldberg's work. As comics historian Mark Evanier notes:

...there were quite a few issues of Millie the Model and other teen comics signed by Sol Brodsky or 'Solly B.' Brodsky was the firm's production manager and an occasional inker, and he did ink a few of the Millie stories that bear his credit. But they were all at least pencilled by Stan Goldberg. At the time, Stan was doing occasional work for the Archie Comics people, and they didn't like to see their artists drawing in that style for other publishers. So when Stan drew teen comics for Marvel, they put Brodsky's name on them in the hope that the Archie editors wouldn't know it was him.[9]

Archie Comics and afterward

Goldberg stopped freelancing for Marvel in 1969,[10] and for three years drew the DC Comics teen titles Date with Debbi, Swing with Scooter and Leave It to Binky.[7] Shortly afterward he began a decades-long association with Archie Comics, joining Dan DeCarlo, Henry Scarpelli and other artists in drawing the house-style misadventures of Archie, Betty, Veronica, Jughead, Reggie and the rest of the Riverdale High teens. Goldberg's work has appeared across the line, including in the flagship series, Archie — for which Goldberg has been the primary artist from at least the mid-1990s through mid-2006 — as well as in issues of Archie and Me, Betty, Betty and Me, Everything's Archie, Life with Archie, Archie's Pals 'n' Gals, Archie at Riverdale High, Laugh, Pep Comics, Sabrina The Teenage Witch, the 1986 educational one-shot Archie's Ham Radio Adventure, and the 1990 TV movie tie-in To Riverdale and Back Again.[7]

Goldberg drew the Archie Sunday newspaper comic strip for a time beginning in 1975.[11] In 1994, Goldberg was chosen to pencil Archie Comics' portion of the intercompany crossoverArchie Meets the Punisher, a one-shot in which the gritty, homicidal Marvel vigilante finds himself pursuing an Archie Andrews look-alike into bucolic Riverdale. The following year, he drew the Archie gang for the cover of the Long Island weekly newspaper Dan's Papers.[12] He penciled a six-page Betty story, "I'll Take Manhattan", published August 17, 2003, in The New York Times'Fashion of the Times magazine supplement.

He ended his nearly 40-year relationship with Archie with two three-part, alternate-future stories in Archie #600-605 (Oct. 2009 - March 2010), "Archie Marries Veronica" and "Archie Marries Betty", followed by some additional, final work including two pages of a flashback sequence in the 25-page "Love Finds Archie Andrews: Archie Loves Betty" in the comics magazine Life With Archie #1 (Sept. 2010), and the cover of, and an 11-page story in, Tales from Riverdale Digest #39 (Oct. 2010).[7][13]

In 2010, IDW released the 160-page hardcover collection Archie: The Best of Stan Goldberg, with a new Goldberg cover.[7]

His posthumously published new work includes an Archie Comics-styled Spider-Man story, "That Parker Boy", written by Tom DeFalco and inked by Scott Hanna, in Marvel's 75th Anniversary Special, scheduled for publication in October 2014.[16]

Other work

In addition to comic-book illustration and coloring, Goldberg drew gag cartoons for men's magazines and did advertising art including a billboard for No-Cal Soda.[17]

Awards and recognition

Goldberg was the National Cartoonists Society Hall of Fame inductee for 2011,[19] which is accompanied by the organization's Gold Key Award, presented to Goldberg on May 26, 2012.[20]

Personal life

Goldberg and his wife, Pauline Mirsky, who married in the early 1960s,[21] had homes in the Beechhurst neighborhood of Queens, New York City, and in Hampton Bays, New York, on Long Island.[22] They have two sons: Stephen, an advertising agency media director, and Bennett, a graphic designer with whom Goldberg has worked on book projects.[22] Another child, daughter Heidi, was murdered in 1984 at age 19.[23][24] Afterward the Goldbergs became involved with the organization Parents of Murdered Children.[22]

Goldberg suffered injuries in an automobile accident in 2013, but made a full recovery.[25] He died at Calvary Hospital in The Bronx[21] at the age of 82 on August 31, 2014, the result of a stroke he had suffered two weeks prior.[25][26]

^Though Goldberg's official Web site says 1968, his Marvel work appears as late as Mad About Millie #6 (Dec. 1969) and Chili #10 (Feb. 1970), and his first known DC work is Date with Debbi #14 (April 1971)

^Marvel Bullpen Bulletins: "More Mirthful, Monumental, Mind-Staggering Memoranda from Your Marvel Madmen!" (March 1966 issues, including Thor #126: "Stan G., our curly-haired, mustachioed demon artist/colorist has just drawn an ad for one of the biggest soft-drink companies. (Its initials are No-Cal!) If you're in the Times Square area, you can see it on the biggest billboard in sight".

^"It is with deep sadness..." Stan Goldberg family Facebook page. September 1, 2014. Archived from the original on February 12, 2016. Retrieved September 1, 2014.Cite uses deprecated parameter |deadurl= (help)